


Is There a 'Romance' Merit Badge?

by DreamerInSilico



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: College AU, Fluff and Humor, Friends to Lovers, Gabe and Jack are both enormous sleep-deprived nerds, Gabriel has a German Shepherd named Reaper, Jack is/was a literal boyscout, M/M, Mutual Pining, Reaper76 Reverse Big Bang, aggressively gleeful references to Dream Daddy, aggressively literal use of 'literally'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-24
Updated: 2017-11-24
Packaged: 2019-02-06 04:00:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12809169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamerInSilico/pseuds/DreamerInSilico
Summary: College seniors and close friends Gabriel and Jack have a three-day weekend coming up, and Gabriel suggests a camping trip to a local "haunted" forest.  Shenanigans ensue.





	Is There a 'Romance' Merit Badge?

**Author's Note:**

> Written for lifewhatisthat's gorgeous art and cute AU idea, in the 2017 Reaper76 Reverse Big Bang - http://lifewhatisthat.tumblr.com/post/167785477171/my-part-of-the-reverse-r76-big-bang-d-this-was
> 
> I had a ton of fun with this fic; I hope you enjoy it!

“You sure you don’t want to come with us?” Gabriel teases Olivia from her couch, where he is half-heartedly picking at the last problem set he has to get done before it’s three-day weekend camping trip-time.  

She’s turned away from him, facing her three enormous monitors (Gabriel asked her once how she afforded a rig like that when she definitely still eats like the broke college kid she ostensibly is, and she just smiled at him and made a cryptic comment about “friends”) in a slouch with her legs over the arm of her desk chair, but he knows she’s rolling her eyes at him anyway when she answers.  “People just like you and me have worked hard to make it so humans can have comfortable beds, air conditioning, and wifi, you know.  You wouldn’t have to give those things up for a weekend to sleep next to Goldilocks if you’d just - “  

She swats away the empty water bottle he tosses at her head as if she had eyes in the back of it.  Or just knows him really, really well.  

He has had a crush on Jack Morrison, history major and fellow board game aficionado, almost since they met, and Olivia has known about it for very nearly that long.  And given him no end of shit about how he should do something about it.  

“Besides,” she continues, “ _ you _ don’t really want me to third-wheel it with you, either.  Also, I have a raid.  And a date, because unlike one  _ pendejo _ I could name, I am not afraid to ask a cute girl out.”  

“I have literally never been afraid to ask a cute girl out.”  He has also literally never wanted to, at least in that context.

“You know what I mean.”

“Are the raid and the date at least separate things this time?” he asks with a knowing smirk, trying and succeeding to turn the conversation back onto her, and she actually turns her chair around enough to give him a dirty look at that, purple-tinted eyes narrowing.

“ _ In fact _ , she’s coming to visit and bringing her laptop so we can raid together, and then go out.”  

“OoOoh.  Now that is exciting.”  He grins.  He really is glad for her.  “Is this the… med student?  Who somehow finds time to play an MMO?”  

“Angela, yes.  And you’re one to talk, Mister I’m An Engineering Major In Three Different Clubs.  Just theatre is almost too much for the mere mortals.  Nevermind the LARP and the board games.”  

“Four.  You forgot ballroom.  And I always assume other people like to sleep, you know, ever.”  

“And yet you know both Jack and me.”  

“Fair point.”

The conversation tapers off after that, and they brew and collectively consume a full pot of coffee to fuel them through getting their respective end-of-week assignments into a condition so as to be reasonable to turn in.  

Finally, at ten minutes to five, Gabriel stands up with a heavy sigh and a cracking of joints.  “Okay, this is as done as it’s going to get; I’m going to rush it over to the dropbox because I swear the TA for this class is waiting there to grab them at five on the dot every week.  Then, I’ve gotta go buy a tent.”

Olivia pushes the key to (he assumes) submit her electronic assignment with a flourish of violet nails.  “Have fun, don’t get eaten by a bear.  Or a grue.  Or die of sexual tension.”  

“Don’t wipe the raid because you’re flirting too much to stay out of the fire.”  

She gives him a positively devilish look, and he has a split second to realize he shouldn’t have said that before her rejoinder.  “If both she and I can keep from wiping the raid while cybering in whispers the whole time, I think we can handle being in the same room together.”

“I did  _ not _ need to hear that.”

 

 

* * *

 

Gabriel wakes up at the crack of ten on Saturday morning, glad he spent the time to fully pack for the trip the night before.  After feeding and taking his dog out, and feeding and showering himself, he’s rolling up in front of Jack’s dorm building to find that he doesn’t need to text - Jack is already out waiting for him.

“Morning Gabe!  How’s - “  He breaks off laughing as he suddenly has a face full of happy German Shepherd.  “And good morning to you too, Reaper.”  He returns the dog-kisses with a hug and an ear-scratch before bright blue eyes return to Gabriel.  “How’s it going?”  

Gabriel grins at him and shrugs as he opens the hatchback of his car for Jack to sling his one military-style duffel and small cooler inside.  “Felt like the week was never going to be over.  I had a project due Thursday, so I missed dance on Wednesday night and then had to do two whole problem sets yesterday, but hey, we finally got here.”  

“Ugh, I feel you.  I had a paper due yesterday.  It is the third one I’ve had to do this semester  _ in that one class. _ ”  

Gabriel gives him an appropriately horrified look as he slides into the driver’s seat.  They’re only halfway through the damn semester.  “I’ll take the projects and the problem sets, thanks,” he says with a shudder.  

“Would be a bit late to change your mind now,” Jack points out dryly.  

“Guess it would.”  

Jack’s looking back at the gear in the car.  “A sword, really, Gabe?  Or is that just left over from LARPing?”  

Gabriel’s metal longsword is tucked alongside the back seat.  He had really just felt like he wanted it, for some reason.  

“That’s actually specifically the Rennfaire sword and used-to-be SCA sword.  The LARP one is foam, and Reaper thought my first one of those was a chew-toy, so it’s only in the car when she isn’t.”  

“Intend to fight many duels in the haunted forest?”  

Gabriel shrugs mischievously.  “Hey, you never know.  Always be prepared, right, Boy Scout?”  

Jack lets out a little snort of a giggle.  “I guess.”  

 

...

 

It is not quite two hours of mostly-dreary scenery (and then Indianapolis traffic) from Purdue before they reach their destination, Morgan-Monroe State Forest.  Gabriel chose it for their camping excursion for convenience’s sake as well as its longstanding reputation for ghost, UFO, and other various supposedly-supernatural sightings.  Jack is less enamoured with the idea of hunting cryptids than Gabriel, but as he likes hiking and camping and fishing just fine, they’re both plenty satisfied with the arrangement.  

Things do get steadily prettier once they’re out of Indianapolis, and the forest itself is a gorgeous breath of fresh autumn air to both eyes and lungs, as they’ve been riding with the windows down most of the way.  They manage to find the park office easily enough, and get assigned a campsite that seems to be somehow on the far end from everyone else in the sparsely-populated grounds.  

“Think it’s because of Reaper?” Gabriel asks Jack when they note their remoteness.  “She’s really good about not barking, or we’d get kicked out of my apartment, I think.”

“Probably, but I’ll take the long walk to the showers for some privacy.  Crowded campgrounds kind of suck,” Jack agrees.  

The campsite itself a little circle of packed dirt with a fire ring, an exceptionally weathered picnic table, and a water spigot.  Picking a tent spot isn’t difficult, as there is one particularly even bit of ground an appropriate distance away from the fire circle.  

When Gabriel fishes out the directions for setting up his new tent, Jack laughs his ass off.

“Have you ever even set up a tent in your life?”  

“I’ll have you know that while I might not be a goddamn Eagle scout, I went to Estrella a couple of times,” Gabriel retorts, eyes scanning the page.  This cannot possibly be more complicated than some of his lab setups.  Or IKEA furniture, which his apartment has in abundance.  

“...What’s Estrella?”  

“SCA war in Arizona.  There was camping.  I… helped set up the tent the last time?”  He smirks to himself and quite gladly lets Jack take the lead with the tent, though.  Jack does not even glance at the directions.  

“How’d that turn out for you?”  

“Well, the tent stayed up.  The event’s really fun, honestly, even if a decent bit of SCA is a bit snooty about LARPers.”  

“Not sure why they would be, given ‘anachronism’ is literally in the name.”  

“I can  _ kinda _ understand it, I guess; they do try to be historical with individual crafts and whatnot.  They’re not so big on Rule of Cool in combat, especially.  But yeah.  I’d go back, but it’s not really the end-all, be-all for me anymore.  LARPing is more fun.  And cheaper.”  

“So what exactly did ‘Lord Blackwatch’ get up to last weekend, anyway?”  Gabriel has been particularly fond of telling about the exploits of his latest character, and Jack seems to know it.  

“Mmmm.  I got to kidnap Prince Charming, who really needs to work on the ‘charming’ bit, by the way.”  

“Please tell me that’s not literally the character’s name.”  

“It’s not.  But we  _ all _ call him that, out of character, even though he’s more whiny than anything else.  I’m telling you, you should have joined this semester; you would have been perfect,” Gabriel insists.   

“Oh, so you want to kidnap me?”  Jack bats his eyelashes at him in a hilariously overdone gesture that, nonetheless, is kind of adorable.  

“Isn’t that what I’m doing this weekend?”

“If it is, you don’t seem to have thought it through very well.  I could walk back to school from here if I really had to.  It’d take a while, but....”  He shrugs eloquently.  

Gabriel responds to this by deftly snagging Jack’s phone from his back pocket.  “Not anymore.”  

Jack laughs and snatches it back.  “Without a phone, you expired Pop Tart.  But thanks for the ass-grope; that was kinda nice.”  

“I barely touched you!  I feel cheated!”

Reaper chooses this moment to nose into Gabriel’s backside with a ball in her mouth.  

“...Thanks, Reaps,” he sighs, laughing a bit.  “I’m going to take this as an attempt at consolation even though you clearly just want me to throw the ball.”  Which he of course does, and she goes bounding after it happily. 

The tent is finally up and fully-staked in another five minutes of Jack doing most of the work (as Reaper predictably and insistently keeps coming back with the tennis ball), and they flop down at the rickety picnic table and pull out the trail guide they picked up at the park office.  

“So, the graveyard is an absolute must.  Even though I read that it’s been vandalized a lot.  We should definitely go at night, though,” Gabriel says, poring over the trail lines and distances and difficulty markers.  

“How good is your flashlight?”  

“Jack, I do technical theatre.  My flashlight is  _ awesome _ .”  

“Right, right.  Just checking.  It looks like a bit of a walk from here, but that’s fine.  And if we stay out past sundown hiking or something, I guess we could hit it on the way back, too.  You said something about fishing earlier; is that a thing we can actually do?”  

“Yeah, I checked online; they’ll rent gear.  I was thinking maybe tomorrow afternoon for that.”  

“Cool.  I actually just got to help a few of the boys in my old troop get their fishing merit badges this summer, so I’m all studied up.”  

“Ugh, that mental image is so wholesome, I’m not sure I can deal.  It’s like drinking a kale smoothie.”  It’s not, at all, like drinking a kale smoothie.  Gabriel kind of wishes he could see Jack with the kids, sometime.  

“Ew.”

“I know, right?”  

“I’m not really sure that’s wholesome in quite the same way.  That’s like… hipster wholesome.  Which the Boy Scouts are not.”  

“Yes, let it never be said that you are in any danger of being hip.”  

Jack laughs and swats him on the shoulder.  “Asshole.  Reaper, tell your dad he needs to be nicer to me.”  Reaper licks Jack’s hand enthusiastically, instead.  “Well, I guess that’s a start.  See, she appreciates me.”  

“Do I need to lick you, too?  Is that what it takes?”  He waggles his brows suggestively, and Jack laughs, as he’s meant to, but internally, Gabriel’s berating himself.  

_ Olivia is right, all the joke-flirting probably isn’t helping anything if maybe someday this really could be, well, a thing.   _

But it’s fun and it’s fun _ ny _ , and it’s how they’ve interacted pretty much the entire time they’ve known each other, since meeting in the board game club second year.  A large part of Gabriel almost doesn’t know how not to, at this point.  

“Ask me later,” Jack says,  _ sotto voce _ , and gives Gabriel what manages to be an absolutely unfairly sexy look before he cracks up again.  

_ Damnit _ , he’s got it bad.  

“So, hiking,” Gabriel redirects.  

“Right, hiking!  We’re here all weekend, might as well just start with the closest trail to the campsite and work our way around, you think?  Do you want to just take lunch with us and have it somewhere on the trail?”  

“I was planning on it.”  And here is where Gabriel at least gets to actually feel prepared and ahead of the game, because he made his own trail mix bars earlier in the week (when he probably should have been working on the project, oh well), and they are fucking delicious, or he certainly thinks so, anyway.  He pulls a knapsack out of the car and holds it up demonstratively.  “Lunch for us, treats for the Reap-beast; bring your own water bottle.”  

“You’re the boss,” Jack agrees with a little salute as he stands and stretches before folding the map up and sticking it into his back pocket with his reclaimed phone.  

 

* * *

 

 

It is perhaps the most perfect weekend (or, at least, Saturday) for hiking and camping that Gabriel could have asked for.  With the sun out, it’s warm enough that they’re both in tee shirts (with hideous, neon vests, because it’s deer season), while the night promises to be perfect for a campfire and hoodies.  

The one downside to it being a beautiful, sparkly-bright autumn day is that the supposedly-haunted forest is decidedly un-creepy.  Sunlight dances through the leaves above them, the gently crisp breeze smelling pleasantly of leaf mold and occasionally, woodsmoke, as it raises a near-constant, quiet whisper from the trees.  

Jack seems to be thinking the same thing.  “Well, you certainly picked a good weekend for this,” he sighs appreciatively, eyes roaming their surroundings as they move.  They’ve been going perhaps a quarter-mile in comfortable quiet, their banter lapsed in favor of enjoying the environment for a while.  

“I choose to believe that it’s making up for my Rennfaire curse,” Gabriel chuckles, devoting a bit more attention to where he’s putting his feet than Jack does - Jack is a damn mountain goat who never seems to so much as stub a toe on a stone in the path - but liking the view all the same.  

“Rennfaire curse?” Jack snorts.  “Why have I not heard of this before?”  

“Well, probably because you’ve never been to Rennfaire with me before, which, by the way, you are  _ so _ not getting out of this year, curse or no curse.  The curse is that the first day I go to any given faire in a year, it always, always rains.  Which is nice in a way, because that means it’s not too hot, but getting your costume wet sucks and having to use a plastic poncho or umbrella also sucks, and so does the mudpit the whole grounds tends to turn into by the end of the day.  This happens to me even in fucking LA.”

“Of course you go in costume.”  

“Oh, you are too, never fear.  I can make you a pirate or a faerie or a pretty pretty princess easily enough, though if you have stormtrooper armor lying around that I somehow don’t know about, that’s popular, too.”  

“Stormtrooper armor,” Jack repeats, disbelieving.  

“Stormtrooper armor!” he agrees with a grin.

“I take it this is a really different crowd from the SCA.”  

Gabriel laughs.  “Not  _ entirely _ ; of course there’s crossover.  But it’s definitely a much more, um, ‘anything goes as long as you’re decent’ atmosphere.”

“I suppose that’s where the pirates and faeries come in?  That still seems more on-point than stormtroopers, though.”  

“I shouldn’t have said anything,” Gabriel laments in a sigh.  “I remember the first time I saw a pair of them at the faire.  It was really one of the best double-takes ever.”  

“I’ll bet it was.”

They stop not much farther up ahead, at a clearing with a conveniently large log and, oddly to Gabriel’s eyes, a firepit, but Jack explains that spots like this are a thing on well-traveled trails in a lot of places, precisely for scout groups and the like.  

The trail mix bars (and peanut butter, and fresh green grapes) are a rousing success with his audience of one, and with the exception of one group of four adults and three teenagers passing through - the latter of whom are briefly quite taken with Reaper before they get hustled off by their parents - they seem to nearly have this particular trail to themselves.  
  


* * *

 

“Gabriel, lunch was delicious, but it was also five hours ago and we’ve been hiking the whole time.”  

Reaper barks, as if agreeing with Jack.  

“But  _ ghosts _ , Jack.  We can just take a quick trip through the cemetery before we head back to the campsite.”  A sly smile stretches across his face.  “I mean, or we could go back and make dinner and then take a picnic to the graveyard, if you’d rather.”  

Jack makes a strangled noise.  “Don’t you Dream Daddy me.”  

Gabriel makes an even more strangled noise.  “Wait, you actually played it?   _ Why did you not tell me this?! _ ”  He had jokingly recommended the game to Jack when Jack had been sick at the start of the semester.  He had  _ not _ expected Jack to actually play it, even if it was objectively a good, cold medicine-friendly distraction.  Gay dad dating simulators weren’t exactly what he expected all-American Boy Scouts to be into, even if he knew that the Boy Scout in question was, in fact, a huge fucking nerd.  

“It just… didn’t come up?” Jack tries weakly.  Even in the dusk light, Gabriel can tell that he’s blushing.  Oh, this is  _ too good _ .  

“Okay, so now I have to know who your favorite was.  Please tell me you at least got to know all of them.”  

“I  _ did _ , but you first,” Jack mutters.  

Gabriel’s enjoying this too much to object.  “Well, I really related to Damien - “

“Of course you did, you extra motherfucker.”  

He can’t help but smirk.  There’s no point in denying it, even if his own vague historical era of choice is decidedly pre-Victorian.  “Of course.  But my favorite romance line was… a toss-up between Robert’s and Hugo’s.  Robert’s is just crazy fun and touching, and Hugo’s… well, I’ve got a thing for massively nerdy liberal arts types, I guess.”  He winks at Jack, who is biting his lip and trying not to laugh.  “Okay, so out with it, then.”  

“Can’t you guess?”  

Gabriel huffs, buying time by snagging the map from Jack’s pocket and figuring out the trail they need to take to get to the graveyard, which they are  _ so _ still going to, picnic or no.  

“Well, not Joseph, because that’s honestly just creepy.  There’s your Halloween costume, though, by the way.  Your incredibly lazy, incredibly on-point Halloween costume.”  Joseph looks so much like a cartoon version of Jack that Gabriel, to his private chagrin, played through his storyline first.  There continued to be  _ just enough _ similarities between Jack and the character to make the differences even more disturbing.  But it really is a perfect Halloween costume; he doubts Jack already owns a pink polo shirt, but it’s not like those are hard to come by.  

“Only if you do Robert with me,” Jack fires back with a snicker.  

“Done.”  Gabriel doesn’t even have to think about it.  That’s  _ almost _ as easy for him as it is for Jack to be Joseph, though he’ll have to think hard about how much he’s willing to thin out and scruff up his beard.  

Did they just plan to do a couples’ --

_ Focus, Gabriel. _

“Maybe Craig?  His line is awfully sweet.  And there’s all that outdoors-yness.”  And a camping trip, which Gabriel refrains from pointing out.  

Jack laughs, golden head shaking.  “His was fun, but I’ve never been a ‘Bro. Bro!’ kinda guy.  Nah, my favorite was Mister Dead, Goth and Beyond, actually.”  

“Wait, so  _ should _ I be heading us back to the campsite to make a picnic?”  

“I dunno, did you bring wine?”  

“Yes, actually.”  While Jack was in charge of breakfast and dinner for this excursion, Gabriel brought lunches and “extras,” and when Jack had mentioned beef stew, red wine seemed like a must-have.  

“... Okay, as awesome as that is, no, because I want hot food, and it’s not going to stay that way on a walk to the graveyard.”  

“I suppose that’s fair.”  

And so they make their way to Stepps Cemetery, supposedly a major hotspot for ghost sightings within the park.  

 

…

 

It’s almost full-dark by the time they reach it.  The lettering on the stone marker proclaiming their arrival is heavily weathered, and the gravestones seem scattered almost haphazardly about the place, many tilting at odd angles like you’d see in a Halloween-themed cartoon.  Best of all (as far as Gabriel is concerned), the crispness of the daytime air has given way to just enough damp to make for some light mist.  

“This is so Nightmare Before Christmas it’s not even funny; I’m so happy right now.”  He picks his way amongst the grave markers, reading text where he can.  “You know the story about the ghost lady who lost her son?”  

Jack gives him a sidelong look, barely visible in the dark with his flashlight pointed elsewhere.  “Gabe, where did I grow up?”  

“I mean, I don’t know how far away that is from here.”  He makes a face at his friend.  

“Closer than West Lafayette.  I didn’t just come here once or twice.  It was awfully convenient for scout stuff.  I never did actually visit the cemetery, though, so this  _ is _ pretty cool, if creepy - which yes, I know, is why we’re here.”  

“I always wonder how legends like that get started,” Gabriel muses, still wandering around.  “Like, what did the first person who told that story actually see?  After you’re expecting something specific, it seems like human psychology would be pretty good at doing the rest, and I know that, but I still kinda want to actually - “

“Did you hear that?” Jack interjects, tension suddenly in his voice.  

Gabriel freezes and listens, cautiously sweeping his flashlight around the area.  He can’t hear anything but the breeze and Reaper shifting slightly on fallen leaves and dry grass.  “No…” he replies and swallows.  “What was it?”  

Jack claps a hand on his shoulder and smirks at him.  “Human psychology being good at doing the rest,” he replies cheekily, which earns him a snort and an attempt to shrug off the hand, even though Gabriel thinks fleetingly that he’d really like it to stay where it is.  It’s warm, and big, and strong.  He wonders if Jack ever thinks about actions like this one, or if the friendliness is just as effortly natural for him as it feels like.  

“Seriously though… the moon’s pretty big right now, let’s turn off the flashlights for a bit, and then we can go back to the campsite and make food,” Gabriel suggests, turning his thoughts back to their ostensible reason for being here.  

Jack shrugs and does so, with Gabriel following suit a moment later.  They stand there in the silvery near-dark, and it’s exactly the kind of ambiance Gabriel could imagine - 

A very real, very loud shriek echoes through the space from somewhere to their right, off beyond the far edge of the graveyard, and they both jump and immediately fumble their flashlights back on.  Though they don’t  _ really _ think they see anything coming from that direction… 

Reaper stands up and barks, eyes riveted to the deeper darkness of the trees.  

“Um, should we...?” Jack suggests, in a tone that’s lacking all of the smugness from the minute or two before.  

Gabriel’s slightly tempted to insist they go after the noise, but it’s probably a bird or something anyway, and… and yeah, he’s kind of spooked at this point, not that he’s going to overtly admit it.  

“Yeah, campfire beef stew sounds pretty amazing right now,” he agrees casually, striding for the path faster than strictly necessary.  “C’mon, girl.”

Jack chuckles a bit, but he’s not wasting any time leaving, either.  

 

...

 

The campfire beef stew is, in fact, amazing (as most hot meals cooked on an agonizingly slow fire after a long day hiking in autumn are wont to be), and while neither of them has particularly sophisticated taste in wine (or money to have developed sophisticated taste in wine), they both do enjoy the bottle of California red Gabriel brought to go with it.  

“How is it you’re utterly hopeless in an actual kitchen, but this  _ might _ be the best thing I’ve ever eaten?” Gabriel groans, three large bites in.  

“How is it you’re so good in an actual kitchen, but didn’t have the first clue how to set up to cook on a fire?” Jack counters, mouth full.  “I learned how to do it.  And campfire recipes are all nice and simple - you either throw stuff in a pot, throw stuff in foil, or throw stuff on a grill, all of which I can do just fine.”  He pauses, then bites his lip and grins as he actually swallows his food.  “Also, I know the best stew mix to use, and we’re hungry.”  

“So, if we catch anything tomorrow, do we get fish for dinner?”  

“I’ve got chicken, too, but somehow I don’t think we’ll have trouble finishing anything extra off, especially if Reaper’s willing to help on the chicken.”  

“‘Willing’ is the understatement of the century,” Gabriel laughs as he reaches out to scritch Reaper’s (who is presently face-down in her food bowl) ears.  

They end up chatting over the rest of the wine, followed by s’mores, not nearly as late into the night as they usually might, given that they have both had long weeks and a more-than-respectable amount of exercise that day.  Gabriel’s head is pleasantly warm and comfortable and fuzzy and not nearly as awkward as he’d imagined he might feel as they retreat to their surprisingly-comfortable tent and air mattresses, with Reaper’s blanket at their feet.  They murmur their good-nights, and Gabriel is asleep before he can think about much of anything.  

Sometime in the middle of the night, he’s vaguely aware of a warm body snuggled up to his shoulder, but it’s gone by morning, and he mostly assumes it was a dream.  

 

* * *

 

It is exceptionally chilly when they wake up not long after dawn (having gone to bed almost ridiculously early by both of their standards), enough so that for quite a while, Gabriel’s desire to stay in his nice, warm air pocket in his sleeping bag far outweighs even the siren song of coffee.  

It is going to be  _ instant _ coffee, after all.  

Jack, however, has considerably more fortitude in the face of cold air, and he rises with a laugh and a few light jibes at Gabriel, who mutters grumpily and proceeds to hide his head in the sleeping bag, too, despite the fact that he slept with his beanie on.  Reaper is awake as soon as Jack starts moving, and seems ready to leave the tent as well.

“I’ll get the fire started, but you’re coming out here to keep me company and feed Reaper when it is.”  Chilly fingertips reach into the top of Gabriel’s sleeping bag just far enough to tug the beanie down completely over his eyes, and Gabriel lets out a growl that is far closer to a squeak than it has any right to be.  

“Nnnfh.”  

“C’mon, Reaps, we’ll let the hothouse flower pretend to sleep a bit more.”  Gabriel’s recalcitrance is shorter-lived than expected, however, as Jack is only just zipping up the tent again from the outside when Gabriel hears a “...the  _ fuck _ ?”

The note of alarm in Jack’s voice is enough to make Gabriel sit up and hurriedly pull on a hoodie.  “What is it?”  

“Uh.”  

“That’s not very descriptive, Jackie.”  He pulls on his jeans, swearing under his breath at how cold they are, then socks and shoes a bit more gracefully.  

“Just… come look.”  

“Yeah, working on it.  If this ends up being another fake-out to get me out of bed faster, you’re gonna end up in the lake today, though, Flying Spaghetti Monster help me,” he mutters as he finishes lacing up his boots and stumbles out into the morning light.  

He sees what Jack’s still looking at a moment later, when he, himself, turns to zip the tent back up.  

On the dark canvas fabric of the tent door is a single dusty, white handprint, slightly blurred as if whoever - or  _ whatever _ , he can’t help but think - left it dragged their fingers against it a bit in a grasping motion.  

“Welllllll that’s creepy as fuck,” is all Gabriel can say as he stands there and stares at it too.  

“Looks like you got your cryptid.  Or ghost.”  Jack lets out a little laugh, clearly trying to make light of it, but unnerved all the same.  “Maybe something followed us back from the graveyard last night.”  

Gabriel was thinking it, too, but since Jack said it, he has to at least try to take the rational road.  “Or our ‘cryptid starter story,’ anyway.  What do you think it is?”  

“Wood ash, maybe?”  The color is a little uneven, which Gabriel initially just took to be uneven coverage of the dark fabric, but now that he thinks about it, there might be some varying shades of light grey in the actual powder.  

“I’m… going to get a damp towel and wipe it off.”  Gabriel shakes himself a bit and stalks off to go do that.  The remains of last night’s campfire seem undisturbed, but he didn’t exactly memorize what that looked like before he went to bed, either.  

They don’t speak much as they care for Reaper and build a fire before washing faces and hands with wet wipes Gabriel brought for the purpose.  He kind of wants a shower, but knows he’s going to  _ really _ want one that night, and the campground’s facilities are clear on the other end from where they are.  

The sun burning off the morning mist coupled with hot (albeit crappy) coffee and oatmeal for breakfast seems to make the world fall back into place a bit, and it becomes easier to write off how spooked they both were to the surprise hitting them both just after waking up.  By the time breakfast is done, they’re laughing about it, and stoked to go fishing.  

Which, Gabriel finds, is a hell of a lot less inherently exciting than he realized he’d naively been hoping, once they settle down to it.  

“Is it usually like this?” he asks after half an hour with no bite for either of them, to which Jack laughs, as he’s had a lot of occasion to do at Gabriel’s inexperience this weekend, Gabriel realizes.   _ Way to look smooth for the guy you’re crushing on, Gabriel.  Invite him out to do something he knows All of The Things about and you really, really don’t _ .  

But at least Jack doesn’t seem like he’s minding being the experienced one in this little excursion.  

“No bites in the first half hour?  Yeah, especially from the shore, even if we are on the bank with the steepest fall-off.  If we go another two or three without a bite, I’ll call it a bad fishing day, but for now, this is why we’ve got snacks, rod holders, and Reaper’s tennis ball.”  

They had considered renting a boat, but Reaper had seemed a bit too energetic that day for her to be happy sitting still out on the water in a rowboat or canoe.  Indeed, at the word “ball,” she immediately pricks up her ears and looks over from where she’s been sniffing at some wet rocks.  

“Alright, alright, yes, you are way more interesting than the fish, right now,” Gabriel mutters fondly as he grabs it for her and they start to play.  

They finally do get a grand total of one bite - on Jack’s rod, but he hands it to Gabriel to reel in - and they are equally delighted when the just-above-spec sized spotted bass finally comes out of the water.  Jack pulls it off the line more deftly than it seems like anyone should be able to manage with such a wet, flopping thing, and tosses it into their catch bucket, where it continues to be wet and flopping, causing Reaper to eye it with interest.  

“You can have a little bit later, girl, if I can find some I can get all the bones out of easily,” Gabriel promises her.  

“If we take this back now, we can clean it, wrap it up and put it in the cooler for later, and then we’ll have time for a hike, yeah?  Or we could keep going and try for more, but it’s definitely a slow day,” Jack suggests.  

“I’m for hiking.  I’m going to go ahead and guess that cleaning a lot more wouldn’t be much fun even if we did get more bites.  Where do we do that, anyway?  Couldn’t we cook it whole?” 

“We could, but it’s much easier to take it apart effectively before you cook it, I promise.  And even cooking it ‘whole,’ you want to gut it first.  I saw an actual table station outside the boathouse, so we can just do it there, then wash up and turn in the gear.”  

Cleaning the fish is…

Well, Gabriel’s even more glad he can get boneless, skinless fillets in the grocery store, and Jack gets another good laugh.  Fish is delicious; fish guts are kind of gross.  

Preoccupied with joking around and tossing the ball for Reaper, they don’t immediately register what’s different about the campsite when they return to it with their prize, but when Gabriel goes to refill his water bottle from the plastic tank they’ve set on the picnic table, he notices it: there is now a perfect box of small, rounded pebbles pushed lightly into the soft clay of the ground around the table.  

“Well, our cryptid is back, apparently,” Gabriel remarks dryly, able to be a bit more blasé about it in full afternoon daylight.  And it also helps that it isn’t a mark left on their tent while they were sleeping.  

Following his gaze, Jack raises his eyebrows.  “...Less menacing, still kinda creepy,” he says after a moment.  “Are you gonna…?”

“Yeah, help me pick these up.  Let’s… put them in a pile somewhere well outside the campsite before we go anywhere else.”  Gabriel tells himself he’s not  _ really _ that superstitious, but he’s read enough fantasy that, well, you can never be too careful with this sort of thing.  

The hike that follows is as lovely as the one the day before (they stay away from the graveyard), and Gabriel spends enough time surreptitiously enjoying another particular view that he’s very pleasantly distracted from the actual spookiness of the handprint and the pebble box, though he does insist on Jack telling him about a few animal tracks they find, in case any of them might be a bit more or less than natural.  Their agreement to sweep the camp for other alterations upon their return is an immediate and unspoken one, and they both breathe a bit more easily when they find nothing out of place, this time.  

“Think we should pull a  _ Supernatural _ and put a ring of salt around the tent before we go to bed tonight, or something?” Jack asks.  

“Did you actually bring a big thing of it?  Because I didn’t, but I’d half-consider it if we have some,” Gabriel says, rolling his eyes at himself.  

Jack shakes his head as he goes to get the fire started up again.  “Somehow, that didn’t occur to me before we left.  I’m kind of surprised  _ you _ didn’t, though.”  

“Hey, I wanted to hunt cryptids; I wasn’t really planning on possibly being followed by a ghost.”  When he says it that way, this situation starts to sound suspiciously like the ones he’s always so mad at characters in movies for not getting the hell out of sooner than they do.  But, he wanted a haunted forest, and they seem to have at least gotten something like it.  And they’re only staying two nights rather than three, which, at a mental stretch, seems vaguely significant.  “At least this has been pretty polite, by ghost standards.  No waking us up in the middle of the night, no real messing with our stuff, except for the bit of ash on the tent flap.”  

“ _ Polite _ , right.”  Jack stands up from the now-catching fire and brushes off his hands on his jeans.  “You watch this for a bit while it makes some coals, and I go shower, then we swap and I’ll start dinner?”   

“You really know how to treat a guy right, Jackie,” Gabriel says with a mock-swoon that’s somewhat marred by the wicked grin that follows it.  Jack just smirks and shakes his head, gathering his things, and making off on the trek for the showers.

One hour, a blessedly hot shower, a set of blessedly clean clothing, and the wonderful, mingled smells of grilling chicken and baking fish later, it’s almost dark and they are finally settling down to eat.  Jack has set up a small, wire grill overlay across the middle of the fire for the chicken, which he’s rubbed down with a spice packet that Gabriel is mildly impressed contained more than just garlic salt, while finely-chopped potatoes and onions have gone into foil packets with the fish into the coals, along with more of the spice rub.  Gabriel finds himself internally lamenting that he didn’t think to bring white wine as well, as that would have elevated the fish to something truly delicious, but all in all it is nearly as excellent a meal as the previous night’s, with a small satisfaction bonus of them having caught the fish themselves.  

Reaper is, as expected, beyond delighted to receive her own (unspiced) chunk of chicken, and Jack digs into his with smug enjoyment.  “I am the Grillmaster, keeper of the flame,” he declares, leaning back into his camp chair.  

“Yeah, yeah, it’s damned good,” Gabriel admits, pointing his fork at Jack.  “See, though, there’s the drama.  I know you’ve got it.  This is why you need to come to Saturdays with me.”  He affects a bit of a pout.  

“Saturdays are the days I’m most often helping out the troop, so I wouldn’t make a very consistent Prince Charming, though I do hate to disappoint.”  

“Comes as a guest player sometime, then.  It’s college; we’ve always got people in and out.”  

Jack tilts his head and looks up into the now-dark sky, as if considering.  “That, I could maybe get behind.  You’d have to woo me some more, though.”  

_ Quit tempting me.   _

_ Or maybe keep tempting me.  Yes, please. _

“Oh, Jackie,” Gabriel says in his very best purr.  He can’t really refuse the opening Jack’s just given him, now can he?  He puts on what he thinks of as his Lord Blackwatch villain-smoulder and leans in a bit.  “Oh, I will woo you.  I can woo you so hard you can’t see straight, if that’s what it takes.”  ( _ Ha. _ )

He can’t tell if Jack’s blushing in the firelight, but the look he’s giving Gabriel back seems appropriately flirtatious, so he draws breath to offer up some line that is equally suave and cheesey, when a very different color of light catches his eye in the woods beyond.  

Apparently Jack notices the shit in his expression and line of sight, because he turns around to look as well, just in time to see the last half-second of dancing blue-green light somewhere amidst the blackness of the trees.  

Gabriel sighs and goes for his water, other hand half-casually reaching out to clasp over Jack’s and squeeze consolingly.  “Don’t worry, Reaps and I will protect you from the things that go bump in the night.”  

Jack’s hand is so warm, even in the chilly air.  

“I thought Lord Blackwatch was a villain.”  Jack’s voice is all amused skepticism, and he doesn’t pull away.  Gabriel wonders how long he can hold this position without it getting awkward.  

“A  _ dashing _ villain, thank you very much.”

A low  _ whoop whoop whoop _ sound comes from an area more to their right, with another little tease of light.  

They both freeze, then slowly look at each other, as the sound repeats with another light in a third direction.  

Gabriel feels a thrill of adrenaline, but quite frankly, more than anything, he’s glad to have something obvious happening in his immediate presence at this point, rather than just a “haha, something was right by your tent when you were sleeping” sort of message left for them to find after the fact.  “C’mon Reaps,” he murmurs, concerns about whether or not he’s allowed to keep holding Jack’s hand rendered moot, and the dog immediately stands up, tail wagging.  She’s clearly curious rather than afraid, which helps him move forward a bit, slowly at first, and then a swift walk toward the last place he saw a light.  

There’s another noise coming from the opposite direction now, but no, he’s not going to turn back around, because Reaper is bounding joyfully forward into the trees in the same direction they’d initially started in, and - 

And there’s a crunching of leaves that’s not her, and a soft “oh shit,” and a giggle.  

Gabriel facepalms.  

Through his fingers and an expression that’s half-grin, half-grimace, he calls out, “Show yourself, and I might not let her lick you quite to death.”  

Another voice calls out before the nearest person does - “Dammit, Joanna, I told you to climb a tree.”  

In reasonably short order, the three teenagers from the trail the day before are out in the open in the campsite, dressed all in dark clothing, and the one - Joanna - only half licked to death and gigglingly petting Reaper.  Gabriel and Jack both stare them down, but they’re both trying not to laugh, and it’s probably obvious, because the teenagers look utterly unrepentant.  Then - 

“Do you have - ?  Are those  _ lighting gels _ on your flashlights?” Gabriel says, shaking his head disbelievingly.  They are, in fact, lighting gels, the thin, blue-green film taped neatly over each of the (impressively high-power) flashlights.  

“Dude, you know what a gel is?” responds the tall girl who seems to be the ringleader, equally incredulous.  

“I’ve only been doing theatre for six years,” he says, snorting a laugh.  “How were you making the noises?  Sounded too uniform to be old-fashioned bird calls.”  

The one named Joanna and a boy who looks quite a lot like her both hold up tiny iPod speakers and grin at them.  

“We heard you guys talking about going to the graveyard last night,” the ringleader explains, with a smirk and a roll of her eyes.  “And our parents - they’re siblings and I’m their cousin - are way more into camping than we are.  Since this place is supposed to be haunted, and you had to have known that coming in…”

“You figured you’d have some fun with the dorks on the other side of the campground,” Jack finishes for her, laughing openly now.  “I think I’m supposed to be mad, but I’m not.”  

“Me neither, but,” Gabriel puts on a stern face, “it really… this could have gone poorly.  We could have been assholes.  This is a great story to tell your friends, I’m sure, but I wouldn’t recommend trying it again with other strangers.”  

“We listened in enough that we knew you were probably cool,” she insists, rolling her eyes yet again.  ( _ Teenagers _ .)  

“Well, from one theatre nerd to apparently a few others, honestly, well done.  10/10, would camp in a haunted forest again.  But seriously.  Please be careful with this shit, okay?  I’m sure you could find creative ways to try to prank each other, or maybe your parents.”  

“Our parents are way, way too used to it,” the boy pipes up.

Gabriel bets they are.  “Just need to up your game, then,” he says with a wink.  “Start more subtle.  You’re a smart group; you’ll come up with new things.”  

The kids give the vague, grumbling noises of assent that usually mean “We’ll do whatever we bloody well please,” and then they each pat Reaper as they make their exit to get back to their own campsite before their parents realize they didn’t go to the bathroom, apparently.  

Gabriel snorts to himself and shakes his head as he watches them go, sitting down to dig into the last few bites of his dinner.  “You know, this is  _ such _ a thing my first boyfriend back in high school and I would have done, given the opportunity.  I’m actually more impressed than anything else.”

“Yeah, they really pulled it off.  I mean, I was seriously freaked at that stupid handprint, especially, and I’d even been here before.”  

“No shit, that was creepy as hell,” he agrees fervently.  Particularly given the timing with the graveyard.  

They chew in companionable silence for a few more moments, and Gabriel offers Reaper his last bite of chicken, which she snaps up with gusto, before moving to take Jack’s empty plate and set the dishes down by the water spigot and bringing back the s’mores kit.

“Gabe?” Jack asks, with surprising hesitancy in his voice, as Gabriel passes him a marshmallow skewer.  

“Mmmn?”

“Did I ever tell you I’m bi?” 

Gabriel pauses in setting up his own marshmallows and sets the skewer down.  This is out of left field.  “...Uh, no, Jackie,” he says slowly, blinking as half his brain is flipping out with joy and the other half is scrambling to interpret the situation at hand.  “Not even when I invited you to Pride that one time, so I think you know you haven’t.”  

That must have come out as more… accusatorial than intended, because Jack grimaces in clear embarrassment and ducks his head, eyes fixed on the fire.  

“I’m… I’m sorry.  This is awkward.  We’ve been friends for long enough and you’ve been so open with me…”  

Gabriel’s brain manages to at least mostly catch up on the here-and-now, and he reaches out to squeeze Jack’s shoulder.  Just because Gabriel hasn’t been in any closets in years sure as hell doesn’t mean everyone else has to be the same way.  And from what he knows of Jack’s family… well, they seem like they have a decent chance of being accepting, but it’s not a given like it was for him.  And Jack actually  _ grew up in _ Indiana farm country, not California.  Gabriel can only imagine how different that must make the whole concept of coming out.  

“Hey, look, that came out wrong.  I’m not, like, upset or anything.  I’m as out as it gets, that’s just how things are, so you’ve known I’m gay pretty much since we met.  But that doesn’t mean you were supposed to be.  I’m glad you trust me enough to tell me.”  

He pauses, studying Jack (who has thankfully looked back up at him) intently, wryly for a moment before continuing.  “I guess what I really want to know… is what made you finally feel like you had to tell me this now.”  

Jack’s eyes dart away again, and he bites his lip, still looking terribly embarrassed, but what comes out of his mouth isn’t in any way indicative of the kind of embarrassment Gabriel was expecting (hoping for).  

“Oh god, I swear I’m not… I didn’t mean to… I swear this wasn’t a ‘hey, me too, I’m cool and counterculture like you because I kissed a boy a few times in high school’ thing.”  

Gabriel finds himself blinking in mild incredulity again.  “Jack.  Jackie.  I didn’t think that,  _ at all _ .”  And then, before he can think better of it, he lets himself blurt out, “I was thinking that maybe, if I was lucky, it was an ‘and maybe I might try kissing a boy more than a few times in college’ thing.”

Aaaaand Jack’s looking at him like a deer in the proverbial headlights.   _ Fuck _ .  

“I mean,” he tries to backpedal, “I wasn’t  _ expecting _ anything like that, and that’s, I didn’t - “  

“Gabe.”  Jack’s smiling a bit, now, finally.  “I’ve had a crush on you since the second month of board game club.”  

The breath leaves Gabriel all in a relieved rush, along with an “Oh, thank  _ god _ ,” and then they’re both laughing, bending over their knees and looking at each other through slitted eyes.  “Jack,” Gabriel gasps after a few moments, half-drunk on hilarity and stomach butterflies.  

“Yes?” Jack’s voice is huskier than Gabriel has ever heard it.  

“Your marshmallows are on fire.”  

“Oh shit, they are.”  And Jack is giggling all over again, and then they both are, as he pulls the sugary torch from its forgotten spot in the fire and blows out the flame.  The marshmallows are beyond redemption, even for Gabriel, who tends to like his at least a bit blackened, and Jack just lets the skewer fall down to the ground next to him.  

“Right, now.”  Gabriel clears his throat.  “Jack?”  

“Yes?” Jack answers again, looking at Gabriel almost expectantly.  

“Can I kiss you?  Because I’ve kinda been thinking about that for a  _ really _ long - “  

He’s already leaning over, and their lips meet in an earnest crash that smooths from awkward into something that feels perfectly natural in about five seconds flat.  Gabriel feels completely winded all at once - it’s not that it’s been such a terribly long time, as he’s hooked up a few times over the years in college, but this is  _ Jack _ .  Jack, who is the one he’s really wanted since, well… about the second month of board game club, in fact.  

Jack’s lips are a bit chapped, but so are his, and they feel  _ so good _ together, and he’s warm, so warm.  In a moment where they come up for air, Gabriel reaches out to cup his face, with its stupidly perfect jawline that’s scratchy with pale stubble, and those stupidly pretty blue eyes, and tugs a bit - and that’s all it takes for Jack to push out of his chair and into Gabriel’s lap, instead.  

(Later, they will be impressed that the camp chair held both of them, but now, that’s not what either is thinking about.)

“I take it back,” Gabriel growls against Jack’s neck after another spectacular minute or so of kissing, “I think I am mad at you for letting me think you were straight for two years, after all.”

He isn’t, not really, and he’s glad that Jack laughs, the sound soft and almost a little breathy as he clutches Gabriel more tightly.  

There’s a happy little whine from Reaper on the ground beside them, which makes them both laugh.  “Reaper doesn’t believe you,” Jack murmurs into his ear.  “But I’ll try to make it up to you anyway.” 

“Damn well better,” Gabriel replies with a smirk before he captures Jack’s lips again.  

After an amount of time that neither has the capacity to estimate, other than it’s long enough for the fire to burn low enough that they’re starting to get cold, they pull apart enough to take stock of the camp.  “I don’t think I care about s’mores anymore; I just want to get in the tent,” Jack observes.  

“Me neither.  I’ll do the dishes if you’ll put out the fire?”  

“Yeah.”  Jack grins muzzily as he leans in for one more deep kiss before pulling away.  Even though Gabriel’s legs are half-asleep because Jack weighs at least as much as he does, he almost tries to pull him back.  But the idea of being in the tent is appealing enough that he manages to refrain.  

A quick cleanup and getting ready for bed later, and they’re there, warm and in their pajamas, and if Gabriel thought kissing Jack was excellent, cuddling  _ and _ kissing is at least ten times better.  Things don’t go any farther than some exploratory hands underneath tee shirts for a number of reasons, but Gabriel is more than content, especially when Jack whispers to him, just as they’re both getting really sleepy, “So… is this… are we an ‘us’ now?  Can we be?”  

“Yes, Jackie.  I really want to be.”  Gabriel wraps himself around Jack even more like an octopus, hugging him all over.  

“Good,” Jack sighs, finally drifting off.  

 

 

* * *

 

The next day is pack-up-and-check-out time, and going on a last, morning hike, as they had at one point thought they might, they spend every bit of it they can get away with still curled up in the tent, soaking in each other’s company like they’ve never quite managed to do before despite all the time they’ve spent together over the last couple of years.  Though Gabriel is looking forward to a repeat scenario hopefully sometime soon with a real bed, the dog elsewhere, and decidedly less clothing, he feels like he will always treasure the few hours they spend there, awake and together and utterly happy.  

Just as they’re about to get up, the sun streaming through the screen vents in the top of the tent, Jack grabs his phone and holds it up above them where they lie.  “Smile, Gabe.”  

Gabriel’s pretty sure he looks goofy when he does, and he’s absolutely sure when he actually sees the picture as Jack’s phone background, later.  

Doesn’t matter.  It was the best three-day weekend ever.  


End file.
